Chapter 946

Several hours after Xu Jingming and others set out.

Somewhere on the Ice Plain, Li Hao, Tian Yao, and several others had gathered together.

Yet they waited in place for over an hour and still saw no sign of Nawa and the others.

“What’s going on? Why haven’t Nawa and the others arrived? The communicator can’t reach them either.”

Looking at the communicator’s display showing no signal within two hundred kilometers, Tian Yao furrowed her brows.

“Six hours ago, their rankings suddenly dropped to zero.”

“They haven’t recovered since—most likely already dead, or trapped somewhere.”

Li Hao gazed up at the leaderboard in the sky and murmured.

“Dead? Impossible.”

Tian Yao instinctively shook her head. “With their strength, they could escape even from a top-tier ninth-rank adept.”

“Who knows? No one knows what dangers lie hidden inside the Po Xu Tower.”

Li Hao gave no reply, turning away. “Let’s go. Regardless of their condition,”

“Waiting any longer is just wasting time. We need to keep searching for the passage to the next level.”

Unlike Xu Jingming, Li Hao and his group lacked such means, so they still hadn’t found the direction of the passage to the next level.

As for Nawa and the others’ disappearance, Li Hao didn’t care much.

After all, his strength surpassed Nawa’s; their absence wouldn’t seriously hinder him.

“Three ninth-ranks vanishing at once—that’s a problem.”

Tian Yao sighed, a sense of unease settling in her chest.

One S-class ninth-rank lower, two A-class ninth-rank middle.

Even for the vast Mandate Church, they were indispensable combatants.

If they vanished without a trace in this Po Xu Tower, she would face severe punishment upon returning.

“I hope they’re all right...”

Though reluctant, with no information available, Tian Yao turned and left.

Yet she didn’t know that Nawa and the others had already been killed by Xu Jingming, their corpses obliterated into ash by his divine thunder...

After breaking through to ninth-rank middle, Xu Jingming’s bloodline and spiritual power each surged by fifty thousand points.

Even under triple gravity, his flight speed in normal form reached 2.1 times the speed of sound.

Yet even so, he flew for over three hours before spotting the teleportation passage to the next level.

It was a black teleportation portal over a hundred meters tall and dozens of meters wide.

Beside it, there was no white passage indicating an exit.

“So it’s true—once you enter the seventh level of the Po Xu Tower, you can’t leave midway.”

Xu Jingming exhaled softly, marveling: “This space is incredibly vast—it took me three hours just to fly here.”

With Eva’s guidance, he had flown in a straight southwest line the entire way.

That meant he had just covered a distance of 7,700 kilometers!

For reference, the north-south span of Great Xia is only 5,500 kilometers.

Just the seventh level of the Po Xu Tower may well be larger than Great Xia itself.

“If only we could control this Po Xu Tower—humanity’s population would surely grow far beyond what it is now.”

Behind him, Su Qingli’s melodious voice spoke, her warm breath brushing against his neck, making it tingle.

“It’s not impossible. After all, no one knows what the final reward of this trial might be—what if it includes the Po Xu Tower itself?”

Xu Jingming smiled, his Lei Long Wings flaring slightly.

With a shriek of lightning, he shot forward as a streak of black light into the black teleportation portal.

After the familiar resistance, Xu Jingming’s vision suddenly cleared.

Simultaneously, a heavy pressure slammed onto him.

“Jingming, the gravity’s gotten stronger!”

Su Qingli called out from his back.

“Mm. Eva, collect environmental data.”

Xu Jingming nodded, hovering midair, giving the order.

“Got it.”

A crisp voice rang out as a pale blue virtual beam projected from his smart bracer.

Xu Jingming lifted his gaze to survey his surroundings.

Unlike the icy world of the seventh level, what lay before him was a scene resembling a primeval forest.

Towering mountains and emerald forests stretched from just hundreds of meters ahead, extending to the horizon.

“Roar—”

“Howl—”

“...”

Terrifying roars echoed from all directions.

In the distant sky, blurred, massive monstrous shapes soared freely.

In the distant forest, trees fell in clusters, the ground trembling—as if fierce beasts were locked in brutal combat.

“Primeval forest. The monsters here in the eighth level of the Po Xu Tower seem especially numerous.”

Xu Jingming’s eyes lit up.

He could almost see countless ability points waving at him.

“S-class. The gravity here is six times that of Blue Star. The oxygen concentration is slightly higher.”

“Also, the Yuan energy concentration here is three times that of Blue Star,” Eva reported, having completed her data collection.

“Six times gravity—no wonder I feel heavier. But I didn’t expect Yuan energy to differ this much.”

Xu Jingming murmured in surprise.

Blue Star’s Yuan energy revival had already reached its peak.

With three times the Yuan energy concentration, staying here would make cultivation and breakthroughs vastly easier.

“Let’s go. Find a place to rest first.”

Three hours of continuous flight had worn even Xu Jingming down.

But he had barely flown a few hundred meters when a voice behind him, tinged with surprise, called out:

But he had barely flown a few hundred meters when a voice filled with slight surprise came from behind:

With his current perception, any living being within five hundred meters would register instantly.

Yet this voice appeared utterly unexpectedly—he had sensed no one nearby before!

That meant the speaker’s strength far surpassed his own.

That meant the opponent’s strength far surpassed his!

Xu Jingming’s body tensed instantly, black lightning swirling around him as he spun around.

There, he saw a group of three just emerging from the teleportation portal, flying toward him.

The leader had a cold, stern face and an icy aura, crimson bloodline energy swirling around him.

“Lord Xue Jian?” Xu Jingming exclaimed in surprise—he hadn’t expected to meet him here.

“I didn’t think you’d arrive faster than us—you beat us into the eighth level of the Po Xu Tower.”

In a blink, the three reached Xu Jingming’s side. The leader, Xue Jian, smiled and introduced:

“Let me introduce you: this is Chen Jun, leader of the Black Soul Guild; this is Zhou Hao, commander of the Gale Legion.”

“Chen Leader, Zhou Commander, greetings, my lords.”

Xu Jingming gave a slight nod.

He recognized both: the tall man in black armor on the left was Chen Jun.

Their guild produced the SSS-class Black Soul Armor.

Of course, Chen Jun’s own strength was formidable too.

He possessed an S-class enhancement ability and was himself a ninth-rank middle adept, known as the Black Soul Martial Saint.

The slightly slimmer man on the right was Zhou Hao.

He wielded an S-class elemental wind ability, also ninth-rank middle, nicknamed the Gale Magic Saint.

The Jifen legion he founded was a massive power in its own right.

Combined with Xue Jian, these three formed an extraordinarily terrifying team.

Among all the adepts who entered Great Xia, theirs was undoubtedly the strongest.

Among the many psychics who came from Daxia, their team should be the strongest.